


The Art of Imitating Life

by misura



Category: A Song For Arbonne - Guy Gavriel Kay
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, M/M, Pre-Canon, Undercover As Gay, Undercover as a Couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22757632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: "Can you at least try to look like you're enjoying yourself?" Rudel murmured, sipping his wine.Blaise scowled. "I'm not."
Relationships: Rudel Correze/Blaise de Garsenc
Kudos: 2





	The Art of Imitating Life

Blaise swallowed. "How far do you want to take this?"

It was, he supposed, as foolish a question as any he had asked this night.

Rudel flashed him a grin. "How far do you want me to take this?"

The plan, inasfar as it was deserving of the word, had been simple - or Blaise's role in it had been, at any rate, which was, he told himself, all he cared to know about.

Rudel was a friend, a close friend, even. Blaise did not mind doing a favor for a friend.

"Honestly," Rudel said, at a volume low enough not to be overheard by any of the other customers. "One might think you had never walked into a tavern before."

_Not looking like this,_ Blaise wanted to say, but then someone whistled, low and suggestive and just possibly a touch appreciative as well, not that that made Blaise feel any better.

He glared, aware of Rudel's hand on his bare arm, as if he were some wild animal and Rudel its owner-slash-handler.

"My apologies. He's not quite tame yet," Rudel said in the silence that had fallen, his voice the tiniest bit slurred to suggest, if not drunkenness, then at least the consumption of a certain amount of wine.

Blaise held his tongue, feeling an odd mix of emotions at Rudel's statement - all part of the act, of course. None of it meant anything, other than that Rudel had fully committed to playing his part, as Blaise should to his.

"If that is so, perhaps you should have left him at home," the man behind the bar said. Blaise couldn't fault him for looking less than pleased at their arrival.

"He has other qualities and talents I would be loath to do without," Rudel said, his hand giving Blaise's arm a light squeeze, a new owner reassuring himself, or a new lover getting a touch possessive.

Or, in this specific case, a signal that Rudel had spotted the man they had come here to kill.

"He also has a mouth of his own to speak with," Blaise growled.

"Though that is probably least interesting thing for which he uses it." Rudel winked at no one in particular. "But come now, I didn't come here to be stared at."

Rudel headed none too steadily for an empty table, his route intended to lead them right past the man whose name Blaise hadn't been told. Rudel would know the name, of course, and the amount of money someone had been willing to pay in order to make that name belong to a dead man, rather than one that lived and breathed.

Blaise would have preferred a clean killing, an ambush outside the tavern, perhaps. Unless the man had brought a truly impressive number of guards, Blaise would have been equal to them - and as accomplished an archer as Rudel ought to have no trouble taking out any target however well-guarded.

Instead - _poison_ , Blaise thought, watching Rudel stumble. _I hate poison._

"Can you at least try to look like you're enjoying yourself?" Rudel murmured, sipping his wine.

Blaise scowled. "I'm not."

"Pretend," Rudel suggested. "As a favor to me?" He smirked. "Remember, you're supposed to be my Northern lover, recently civilized through his ardent passion for my cock."

Blaise continued scowling. "You couldn't have come up with a better cover?"

"Different? Assuredly. But better - well." Rudel grinned broadly. "No."

"How long do we need to sit here?" Blaise presumed they had stayed to make sure the target actually emptied the cup Rudel has slipped the poison into, rather than, say, leave it standing on the table while he went off to do something else.

"It needs to look like an accident," Rudel said. "Which I would have told you earlier if you'd seemed at all interested in the details."

Blaise mentally went over the options. _Not_ poison, then. "You want people to think he got himself knifed in a tavern brawl?"

"It does happen," Rudel said. "Rather often, in this neighborhood."

"What makes you think he's going to - " Blaise started to ask, but then he saw the target looking at the two of them and he knew. That look - it was appraising. A bit wary, too, because Blaise was clearly attached, but then, he'd been scowling a lot and Rudel had looked rather drunk.

Added to the fact that at least his preferences seemed clear enough, it was all but an invitation.

Once he knew, of course, the quality of his own expression changed, which might all have been a part of Rudel's plan.

"Confess, I'm brilliant," Rudel said, as the target got up and came heading for their table, the look on his face half-nervous and half-determined.

"Next time you ask me for a favor, remind me to refuse." Blaise gingerly touched his cheek.

Rudel laughed, and Blaise remembered he'd laughed just like that the moment before he'd thrown one of his knives at someone - to wound, rather than kill, in keeping with their cover, of course. Even when he seemed intent on tormenting Blaise, Rudel was nothing if not professional. 

"Don't blame me for your good looks."

"My good looks have been considerably reduced," Blaise said dryly. "Besides, I think it was really your imitation of a drunken jealous lover that pushed him over the edge."

"You have your gifts, and I have mine. It's what makes us such a good team."

Blaise frowned. There had been something about Rudel's tone just now - _it's only your imagination,_ he told himself. _It's that you haven't seen him for a while. It's not anything more than that. Rudel's not like that, after all, and neither are you._

"What would you have done if he hadn't taken the bait?"

"Something to thoroughly scandalize the other customers, of course." Rudel grinned at him. "Pretended to take you bent over the table, possibly, or the other way around, if you'd been up for it. If that wouldn't have brought him running, I figure it'd at least have gotten him out of the tavern where we could have gone for the back-up plan. Not as elegant, but then, the money for this one wasn't _that_ good."

Blaise imagined it, the sensation of the table's wooden surface and Rudel's mouth against his - as it would have been, to sell the illusion that they were actually - that Blaise was the sort of man who -

"If you want to hit me, remember that I've always been quicker than you," Rudel said. "Meaning you're probably only going to hit air or, worse, the wall."

Blaise shook his head, as much to clear it as to deny Rudel's suggestion. "It's not that." He hadn't had a woman for a long time. That was all. And Rudel was a friend, someone he trusted.

"Do you want to talk about what it is?" Rudel asked, his tone soft, almost gentle.

"I want to get drunk and forget tonight ever happened." It was not, Blaise assured himself, a lie.

Blaise sighed. He felt - _drunk_ , he thought. _You're very, very drunk right now._

And yet - _'How far do you want me to take this?'_ Rudel had asked, and it was a fair question, even if it was also one Blaise had no idea how to answer - or if he did, it was not an answer he felt entirely comfortable saying out loud, even in this room with no one other than Rudel to hear him.

"Why don't you go ahead and I will tell you when to stop?" he said. It was as fair an answer as he could imagine making.

Rudel hesitated, then nodded. "All right. If that is how you want to do this."


End file.
